Morris Meyer live blog highlights

By: Rob
Published On: 12/14/2006 10:48:16 PM

Morris Meyer - who is running against Del. Tim Hugo (R) - live blogged at Bryan Scafford's blog last night. Some highlights ...

His thoughts on transportation:

And as a Democrat I believe that long-term investment in transportation is critical to our growth in northern Virginia and our business corridors statewide.

We need more legislators in Richmond who are willing to make that shift in perspective.

There is no silver bullet to fixing transportation, more appropriately a silver shotgun shell.

Guided growth policies such as transit-oriented development will help slow our skyrocketing maintenance costs that threaten to overwhelm our budget - as well as help preserve historical and parkland.

We need to look at telecommuting, public-private partnerships, congestion pricing and a host of other alternatives that address our systemic transportation issues.


Later in the blog, he struck a contrast between himself in his opponent on this issue:
GÇ£Borrowing money from our schools to pave our roads is just plain nutsGÇ¥

As a parent I am outraged that Delegate Hugo cannot come up with anything better than that. After canvassing 1,000 households for the Webb / Hurst campaign, I can guarantee you that that is a very common concern amongst northern Virginia parents.

On education:
No Child Left Behind should be renamed to Short Change Every Child.

The GOP Congress to the seed of a good idea and perverted it to where it as convenient excuse to underfund schools.

The Republicans donGÇÖt believe in public education and donGÇÖt believe that government can and should be a force for the common good. As a taxpayer I believe that if you donGÇÖt believe in working toward open, accountable, honest, ethical and hopeful government - you should get out of the way and let those who do take their turn.

That is what American voters affirmed in November and Virginia voters affirmed in 2001 with Warner and again in 2005 with Kaine. Here in Virginia Democrats have led by example to balance budgets, improve our schools and build Virginia into the best place to do business in America.

That comes from believing that our government can be a force for change....

As Democrats we need to make the argument that investment in education is the smartest thing voters can do for the children and their communities. As our job base has shifted into high-tech that investment must extend upward toward making college affordable to anyone that wants to choose that route.

And on his campaign strategy to beat Hugo:
Our campaignGÇÖs strategy for beating Hugo is pretty straightforward.

1 - Create new Democratic voters in predominantly Democratic precincts by voter registration and voter education.

2 - Bring presidential drop-off Democratic voters out to vote because funds for their kids schools are being raided.

3 - Convince the persuadable on their doorsteps that they can vote for my opponent sit frustrated in traffic for another two more years or they can vote for change.

David Poisson won in House District 32 with about $300k in a district that is demographically and politically similar to House District 40.

Click here to read the whole thing. Hope to hear more from him soon.

(note: I corrected some spelling typos in the quotes.)


Comments



He laid out his program (Teddy - 12/15/2006 8:51:08 AM)
very nicely, and it is one with which progressives in general will find themselves agreeing. He is running against a republican clone, a foot soldier in the obstructionist, no-tax, no-transportation crew of the Assembly (despite Hugo's gesture toward solving the transportation crisis with some legislation last Assembly, he offered no long term funding solution and stole from education and public health to pay for his short-term "fix" so I for one cannot count Hugo as good for NoVa transportation).

Therefore, our task is clear: the candidate needs at least $300,000, and he needs it early on so he can hit the ground running.  He's going to need dozens of volunteers to get his message out.  Where do we sign up, how do we contribute?



My personal favorite (MorrisMeyer - 12/15/2006 9:24:23 AM)
"...it is time for Democrats to stand up and say that the conscience of America - the act of forming that more perfect union is the essence of the Democratic party."

You will hear a great deal more on that very soon.

_________________

In response to the posting above:

You can contribute here.

You can volunteer here.

And most importantly, you can RSVP to our campaign kickoff on January 6th, 2007 and learn how together we are going to help take back the Virginia House of Delegates!

--morris meyer



Thanks for stopping by! (Rob - 12/15/2006 11:27:15 AM)
If you're interested in doing a live blog here some time, email me.